Let's see, where were we? Oh  right here! Like a parent reading his children their favorite story, Peter Jackson begins The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second in his adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy, just about where the first one left off. No brief synopsis of the dozens of major characters introduced a year ago in The Fellowship of the Ring, or of the great quest they are bound to serve or thwart. Instead, director and co-writer Jackson begins Part II with a flashback to a literal cliff-hanger: the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) clinging to a...